Charles Stross is a good Scot. He writes science fiction, he used to be able to hack, and he travels. He also understands principles. Since he writes better than me… Go and read it, I can wait.

Here’s the rub: security is a state of mind, not a procedure. Procedures can't cope with attackers, because they're inflexible. If you search passengers for guns, someone will carry a knife. If you search for knives, someone will sew themselves a set of underwear full of PETN. And so on. To deal with a threat — say, someone who wants to attack your air travel infrastructure — you must look for the attacker, not their tools, because they can change their tools at will to exploit weaknesses in your procedure for identifying tools.

via Charlie’s Diary.

What Charles is comparing is the US versus the rest of the world on getting through an airport.

In most of Europe and Asia, you book in, and you go through a security screen and immigration  with your bag. When you get to the gate your bags are screened.

Multiple, parallel methods.

In the US, Auckland (which is horrible — I’d rather fly directly from Christchurch or Dunedin to Australia) there are many flights going through one or two screeners and people doing rote searches. Clearly bored. Not interacting with the tourists.

He was worried about the risks of the queues. My issue is “why?”

I’ve two suggestions.

1.  NZ and Oz are islands with a large agricultural industries. We have to screen for contraband such as pests. We got used to using multiple Xray machines DECADES ago. Plus dogs walking around — because we cannot afford to lose our exports.

2.  In much of the world Tourism is a big industry. The tourist experience begins on the plane, and on landing first impressions count. It does not take much to teach staff to smile. It takes a little more to teach staff to interact and observe. (Which is what Israel does — and they are the experts on security).

The US? Had some good times there… (though travelling through upper Georgia with my Kiwi Chinese ex was interesting). But there an assumption that it is a privilege to have people arrive in officialdom, not a realisation that people can go somewhere else…

And there are consequences. I set my flights up to Avoid the USA. I do not go to learned conferences in the US. It’s not worth the hassle. And it is probably safer.